Orphans Beloved: I Carry Your Heart
by regertz
Summary: Like my Immortal Beloved bits in my Buffyverse stories, these are fragments and short bits, some longer…Just to fiddle with ideas, possibly forming longer tales later.


"Orphans Beloved: "I Carry Your Heart…"

Summary: Like my Immortal Beloved bits in my Buffyverse stories, these are fragments and short bits, some longer…Just to fiddle with ideas, possibly forming longer tales later.

Disclaimer: No copywrite infringement intended…

"So…" the teacher, Mr. Gilchrist, in sweater vest, rubbing beard…Writing at chalkboard, slight squeak of chalk on board… "E.E. Cummings…1894-1962."…He paused to turn and eye the class at desks before him… "E.E Cummings. Given to odd punctuation…Pretension or was he achieving something new? Any thoughts?" he scanned the group.

"Why would the guy write like this?" one voice. "Didn't he go to school?"

Titters from the class…

"Shut it." Gilchrist waved a hand. "A fair question, Donald…Why would he write like this? Anyone?"

"He was bored with English…" a voice…

Giggles…

"Again, shut it…" Gilchrist stepped among the desks, moving slowly… "But wiser than you know, he was probably was. Most of the great writers in any language are, on some level. But instead of doing nothing but sit around, sleeping…" he kicked at the legs of one snoring student who jumped…

"Jesus?!"

"Very good, for a catatonic, Raymond…Jesus in fact did some elegant things with language. If we assign at least what the Gospels claim he said to him and allow for translation license…But getting back to Mr. Cummings…" he moved on down the row…

"He was bored with traditional style and tried something new…Hendrix? Thoughts?" he paused before a desk, the occupant, Alison Hendrix, a dark-haired girl of 15 staring up at him with large eyes, nervous.

Today he picks on me…Now? Oh, God…

Just off mother's latest therapy craze and I have to deal with this? She eyed the teacher, sensing the vultures about her, ready to pounce…

No matter how hard I try to make them like me…Try to fit in…Something just never…

And thanks to Mother, they all know…And they all love to whisper it round that I'm invitro…A freak of science. And that I'm in therapy…Constantly.

Crackers Alison…The invitro freak who needs constant psychoanalysis because that's what freaks require.

"I'm not sure, Mr. Gilchrist."

"Did you read the poems assigned?"

"Yes." Small voice. "They were very interesting."

"Enlighten us, Hendrix." Calm tone, class awaiting the kill…

"He has an unusual…Style."

"Example?"

"Well…"

"No caps!" the aforeaddressed Donald called out…Gilchrist whirling to face him.

Alison blinked with nervous relief…

A few seconds' reprieve…

From an unexpected source…She looked over at Donald at his desk…Him. The one who always seems to be trying to get my goat...Always muttering about me being a teacher's pet…Making fun of me to the girls…He saw them asking me about my time in the 'looney bin' as the girls so charmingly put it this morning in the hall. On the large size, your typical budding jock…Though not without a certain charm when he smiles…Candidate for laziest student in…

An eager for the kill classmate, disappointed in the last-minute save, startling her… "No reading allowed at Happy Acres, Alison?" cooing tone.

"Quiet!" Gilchrist, sternly. "Donald? I see you must have at least glanced over the poems…What else?"

"I dunno know…" Donald shrugged in his seat. "He uses parenthesis a lot, to give parts a different voice."

"Ooooh…Donnie the lit scholar!" sneering cry.

"Enough." Gilchrist, coolly. Wry smile at Donnie… "Why do I have the feeling you're the one person in this room who actually read some of the poems?"

Alison looking over…

"They were ok…" Donnie nodded. "'I carry your heart with me' was kinda nice." Glance to meet Alison's (thank you) stare.

(anywhere you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

"And?" Gilchrist, patiently. "Why?"

"It's just…" Donnie paused.

You are whatever a moon has always meant; and whatever a sun will always sing is you

Caution glance to Alison…

"…some of it's kinda…"

"'Nice'?" Gilchrist, not a harsh smile. "But anything specific, Don? What did you like about it?"

"It kinda flows along nice…" Donnie, nervously. "The words kinda run along…"

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows (there is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

And the sky of the sky of a tree called life which grows

Higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

Ally, slight encouraging smile…

And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (i carry it in my heart).


End file.
